6.85 Edmond Rostand 1868-1918
Un grand nez est proprement l’indice D’un homme affable, bon, courtois, spirituel, Libèral, courageux, tel que je suis.
A large nose is in fact the sign of an affable man, good, courteous, witty, liberal, courageous,
as I am.
‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ (1897) act 1, sc. 1
Cyrano: Il y a malgrè vous quelque chose Que j’emporte, et ce soir, quand j’entrerai chez Dieu, Mon salut balaiera largement le seuil bleu, Quelque chose que sans un pli, sans une tache, J’emporte malgrè vous...et c’est...Mon panache!
Cyrano: There is, in spite of you, something which I shall take with me. And tonight, when I go into God’s house, my bow will make a wide sweep across the blue threshold. Something
which, with not a crease, not a mark, I’m taking away in spite of you...and it’s...My panache!
‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ (1897) act 5, sc. 4
Le seul rêve intèresse, Vivre sans rêve, qu’est-ce?
The dream, alone, is of interest. What is life, without a dream?
‘La Princesse Lointaine’ (1895) act 1, sc. 4
6.86 Jean Rostand 1894-1977
On tue un homme, on est un assassin. On tue des millions d’hommes, on est conquèrant. On les tue tous, on est un dieu.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill
everyone, and you are a god.
‘Pensèes d’un biologiste’ (1939) p. 116.
6.87 Leo Rosten 1908—
The only thing I can say about W. C. Fields, whom I have admired since the day he advanced upon Baby LeRoy with an ice pick, is this: any man who hates dogs and babies can’t be all bad.
Speech at Hollywood dinner in honour of W. C. Fields, 16 February 1939, in ‘Saturday Review’ 12 June 1976
6.88 Philip Roth 1933—
A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die!
‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ (1967) p. 111
Doctor, my doctor, what do you say, LET’S PUT THE ID BACK IN YID!
‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ (1967) p. 124
6.89 Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle 1760-1836
Allons, enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivè...
Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos battaillons!
Come, children of our country, the day of glory has arrived...To arms, citizens! Form your
battalions!
‘La Marseillaise’ (25 April 1792)
6.90 Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-78
L’homme est nè libre, et partout il est dans les fers.
Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
‘Du Contrat social’ (1762) ch. 1
Laisse, mon ami, ces vains moralistes et rentre au fond de ton âme: c’est lá que tu retrouveras toujours la source de ce feu sacrè qui nous embrasa tant de fois de l’amour des sublimes vertus; c’est lá que tu verras ce simulacre èternel du vrai beau dont la contemplation nous anime d’un saint enthousiasme.
Leave those vain moralists, my friend, and return to the depth of your soul: that is where you will always rediscover the source of the sacred fire which so often inflamed us with love of the sublime virtues; that is where you will see the eternal image of true beauty, the contemplation of
which inspires us with a holy enthusiasm.
‘La Nouvelle Hèloise’ (1761, ed. M. Launay, 1967) pt. 2, letter 11
6.91 Dr Routh 1755-1854
You will find it a very good practice always to verify your references, sir!
In John William Burgon ‘Lives of Twelve Good Men’ (1888 ed.) vol. 1, p. 73
6.92 Dan Rowan 1922-87 and Dick Martin 1923—
Sock it to me, baby.
‘Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In’ (American television series, 1967-73) catch-phrase
6.93 Nicholas Rowe 1674-1718
Is this that haughty, gallant, gay Lothario?
‘The Fair Penitent’ (1703) act 5, sc. 1
Like Helen, in the night when Troy was sacked, Spectatress of the mischief which she made.
‘The Fair Penitent’ (1703) act 5, sc. 1
Death is the privilege of human nature,
And life without it were not worth our taking.
‘The Fair Penitent’ (1703) act 5, sc. 1
6.94 Helen Rowland 1875-1950
A husband is what is left of a lover, after the nerve has been extracted.
‘A Guide to Men’ (1922) p. 19
Somehow a bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever.
‘A Guide to Men’ (1922) p. 25.
The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn’t commit when he had the opportunity.
‘A Guide to Men’ (1922) p. 87
6.95 Richard Rowland c.1881-1947
The lunatics have taken charge of the asylum.
Comment on the take-over of United Artists by Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.
W.Griffith, in Terry Ramsaye ‘A Million and One Nights’ (1926) vol. 2, ch. 79.
6.96Maude Royden 1876-1956
The Church should go forward along the path of progress and be no longer satisfied only to represent the Conservative Party at prayer.
Address at Queen’s Hall, London, 16 July 1917, in ‘The Times’ 17 July 1917
6.97 Naomi Royde-Smith c.1875-1964
I know two things about the horse And one of them is rather coarse.
‘Weekend Book’ (1928) p. 231
6.98 Matthew Roydon fl. 1580-1622
A sweet attractive kind of grace, A full assurance given by looks, Continual comfort in a face, The lineaments of Gospel books;
I trow that countenance cannot lie, Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.
‘An Elegy, or Friend’s Passion, for his Astrophill’ (on Sir Philip Sidney) (1593) st. 18
Was never eye, did see that face, Was never ear, did hear that tongue, Was never mind, did mind his grace, That ever thought the travel long— But eyes, and ears, and ev’ry thought,
Were with his sweet perfections caught.
‘An Elegy, or Friend’s Passion, for his Astrophill’ (on Sir Philip Sidney) (1593) st. 19
6.99 Paul Alfred Rubens 1875-1917
Oh! we don’t want to lose you but we think you ought to go For your King and your Country both need you so;
We shall want you and miss you but with all our might and main We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you
When you come back again.
‘Your King and Country Want You’ (1914 song)
6.100 Richard Rumbold c.1622-85
I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.
On the scaffold, in T. B. Macauley ‘Histories of England’ vol. 1 (1849) ch. 1
6.101 Damon Runyon 1884-1946
Guys and dolls.
Title of book (1931)
I do see her in tough joints more than somewhat.
‘Collier’s’ 22 May 1930, ‘Social Error’
‘You are snatching a hard guy when you snatch Bookie Bob. A very hard guy, indeed. In fact,’ I say, ‘I hear the softest thing about him is his front teeth.’
‘Collier’s’ 26 September 1931, ‘The Snatching of Bookie Bob’
I always claim the mission workers came out too early to catch any sinners on this part of Broadway. At such an hour the sinners are still in bed resting up from their sinning of the night before, so they will be in good shape for more sinning a little later on.
‘Collier’s’ 28 January 1933, ‘The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown’
I long ago come to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against.
‘Collier’s’ 8 September 1934, ‘A Nice Price’
‘My boy,’ he says, ‘always try to rub up against money, for if you rub up against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you.’
‘Cosmopolitan’ August 1929, ‘A Very Honourable Guy’
6.102 Dean Rusk 1909—
We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.
On the Cuban missile crisis, 24 October 1962, in ‘Saturday Evening Post’ 8 December 1962
6.103 John Ruskin 1819-1900
You hear of me, among others, as a respectable architectural man-milliner; and you send for me, that I may tell you the leading fashion.
‘The Crown of Wild Olive’ (1866) 53, lecture 2 ‘Traffic’
Thackeray settled like a meat-fly on whatever one had got for dinner, and made one sick of it.
‘Fors Clavigera’ (1871-84) letter 31
I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.
Referring to Whistler’s ‘Nocturne in Black and Gold’, in ‘Fors Clavigera’ (1871-84) letter 79, 18 June 1877.
No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.
‘Lectures on Architecture and Painting’ (1853) 61, addenda
Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.
‘Lectures on Art’, 3 ‘The Relation of Art to Morals’ 23 February 1870
What is poetry? The suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions.
‘Modern Painters’ (1888) vol. 3
All violent feelings...produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the ‘Pathetic Fallacy’.
‘Modern Painters’ (1888) vol. 3
Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.
‘Modern Painters’ (1888) vol. 4, pt. 5, ch. 20, 1
There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell...You enterprised a railroad...you blasted its rocks away...And now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton.
‘Praeterita’ (1885-9) 3, 4 ‘Joanna’s Cave’ 84, note
All books are divisible into two classes: the books of the hour, and the books of all time.
‘Sesame and Lilies’ (1865) lecture 1 ‘Of Kings’ Treasuries’ 8
Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.
‘Sesame and Lilies’ (1865) lecture 1 ‘Of Kings’ Treasuries’ 13
Which of us...is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest—and for what pay? Who is to do the pleasant and clean work, and for what pay?
‘Sesame and Lilies’ (1865) lecture 1 ‘Of Kings’ Treasuries’ 30, note
We call ourselves a rich nation, and we are filthy and foolish enough to thumb each other’s books out of circulating libraries!
‘Sesame and Lilies’ (1865) lecture 1 ‘Of Kings’ Treasuries’ 32
I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with enjoyment—was the carver happy while he was about it?
‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’ (1849) ch. 5 ‘The Lamp of Life’
Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.
‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’ (1849) ch. 6 ‘The Lamp of Memory’ 7
When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’ (1849) ch. 6 ‘The Lamp of Memory’ 10
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
‘The Stones of Venice’ (1851-3) vol. 1, ch. 2, 17
Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy
without labour is base.
‘Time and Tide’ (1867) letter 5
Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it.
‘Time and Tide’ (1867) letter 8
The first duty of a State is to see that every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed and educated, till it attain years of discretion.
‘Time and Tide’ (1867) letter 13
Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.
‘The Two Paths’ (1859) lecture 2
Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.
‘The Two Paths’ (1859) lecture 2
Nobody cares much at heart about Titian; only there is a strange undercurrent of everlasting murmur about his name, which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they.
‘The Two Paths’ (1859) lecture 2
It ought to be quite as natural and straightforward a matter for a labourer to take his pension from his parish, because he has deserved well of his parish, as for a man in higher rank to take his pension from his country, because he has deserved well of his country.
‘Unto this Last’ (1862) preface, 6 (4)
The force of the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbour’s pocket. If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you.
‘Unto this Last’ (1862) essay 2, 27
Soldiers of the ploughshare as well as soldiers of the sword.
‘Unto this Last’ (1862) essay 3, 54
Government and co-operation are in all things the laws of life; anarchy and competition the laws of death.
‘Unto this Last’ (1862) essay 3
Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.
‘Unto this Last’ (1862) essay 3
There is no wealth but life.
‘Unto this Last’ (1862) essay 4, 77
6.104 Bertrand Russell (Bertrand Arthur William, third Earl Russell) 1872-1970
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
‘The Conquest of Happiness’ (1930) ch. 1
Boredom is...a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
‘The Conquest of Happiness’ (1930) ch. 4
One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.
‘The Conquest of Happiness’ (1930) ch. 5
One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.
‘The Conquest of Happiness’ (1930) ch. 9
A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
‘The Conquest of Happiness’ (1930) ch. 10
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
‘The Conquest of Happiness’ (1930) ch. 12
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.
‘The Conquest of Happiness’ (1930) ch. 14
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
‘Marriage and Morals’ (1929) ch. 19
Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
‘Mysticism and Logic’ (1917) ch. 4
The law of causality, I believe, like mud that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.
‘Mysticism and Logic’ (1919)
Only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
‘Philosophical Essays’ (1910) no. 2
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.
‘Philosophical Essays’ (1910) no. 4
Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
‘Sceptical Essays’ (1928) ‘Dreams and Facts’
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
‘Sceptical Essays’ (1928) ‘On the Value of Scepticism’
It is obvious that ‘obscenity’ is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means ‘anything that shocks the magistrate’.
‘Sceptical Essays’ (1928) ‘Recrudescence of Puritanism’
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from
enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.
‘Sceptical Essays’ (1928) ‘Recrudescence of Puritanism’
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.
‘Unpopular Essays’ (1950) ‘Outline of Intellectual Rubbish’
The linguistic philosophy, which cares onyl about language, and not about the world, is like the boy who preferred the clock without the pendulum because, although it no longer told the time, it went more easily than before and at a more exhilarating pace.
In Ernest Gellner ‘Words and Things’ (1959) introduction
6.105 Dora Russell (Countess Russell) 1894-1986
We want better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them.
‘Hypatia’ (1925) ch. 4
6.106 George William Russell
See AE (1.22) in Volume I
6.107 Lord John Russell 1792-1878
It is impossible that the whisper of a faction should prevail against the voice of a nation.
Letter to T. Attwood, October 1831, after the rejection in the House of Lords of the Reform Bill (7 October 1831)
If peace cannot be maintained with honour, it is no longer peace.
Greenock, 19 September 1853.
Among the defects of the Bill, which were numerous, one provision was conspicuous by its presence and another by its absence.
Speech to the electors of the City of London, April 1859
A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom.
Ascribed
6.108 Sir William Howard Russell 1820-1907
They dashed on towards that thin red line tipped with steel.
On the Russians charging the British, in ‘The British Expedition to the Crimea’ (1877) p. 156. Russell’s original dispatch to The Times, 25 October 1854, printed 14 November 1854 read: ‘That thin red streak tipped with a line of steel’
6.109 Ernest Rutherford (Baron Rutherford of Nelson) 1871-1937
All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
In J. B. Birks ‘Rutherford at Manchester’ (1962) p. 108
We haven’t got the money, so we’ve got to think!
In ‘Bulletin of the Institute of Physics’ (1962) vol. 13, p. 102 (as recalled by R. V. Jones)
6.110 Gilbert Ryle 1900-76
A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them.
‘The Concept of Mind’ (1949) introduction
Philosophy is the replacement of category-habits by category-disciplines.
‘The Concept of Mind’ (1949) introduction
The dogma of the Ghost in the Machine.
‘The Concept of Mind’ (1949) ch. 1, on the mental-conduct concepts of Descartes
7.0S
7.1Rafael Sabatini 1875-1950
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony.
‘Scaramouche’ (1921) bk. 1, ch. 1
7.2 Oliver Sacks 1933—
The man who mistook his wife for a hat.
Title of book (1985)
7.3 Victoria (‘Vita’) Sackville-West 1892-1962
The greater cats with golden eyes Stare out between the bars.
Deserts are there, and different skies, And night with different stars.
‘King’s Daughter’ (1929) pt. 2, no. 1 ‘The Greater Cats with Golden Eyes’
The country habit has me by the heart, For he’s bewitched for ever who has seen,
Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun.
‘Winter’
7.4 Françoise Sagan 1935—
Rien n’est plus affreux que le rire pour la jalousie.
To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.
‘La Chamade’ (1965) ch. 9
7.5 Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve 1804-69
Et Vigny plus secret,
Comme en sa tour d’ivoire, avant midi rentrait.
And Vigny more discreet, as if in his ivory tower, returned before noon.
‘Les Pensèes d’Août, á M. Villemain’ (1837) p. 152
Le silence seul est le souverain mèpris.
Silence alone is the sovereign contempt.
‘Mes Poissons’
7.6 Antoine de Saint-Exupèry 1900-44
Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c’est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications.
Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be
always and forever explaining things to them.
‘Le Petit Prince’ (1943) ch. 1
On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
‘Le Petit Prince’ (1943) ch. 21
L’expèrience nous montre qu’aimer ce n’est point nous regarder l’un l’autre mais regarder ensemble dans la même direction.
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in
the same direction.
‘Terre des Hommes’ (translated as ‘Wind, Sand and Stars’, 1939) ch. 8
7.7 Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) 1870-1916
It is one of the consolations of middle-aged reformers that the good they inculcate must live after them if it is to live at all.
‘Beasts and Super-Beasts’ (1914) ‘The Byzantine Omelette’
Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.
‘Beasts and Super-Beasts’ (1914) ‘The Feast of Nemesis’
The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.
‘Chronicles of Clovis’ (1911) ‘The Jesting of Arlington Stringham’
All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren’t respectable live beyond other peoples’.
‘Chronicles of Clovis’ (1911) ‘The Match-Maker’
The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.
‘Reginald’ (1904) ‘Reginald at the Carlton’
Every reformation must have its victims. You can’t expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal’s return.
‘Reginald’ (1904) ‘Reginald on the Academy’
The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as good cooks go, she went.
